Dies Iræ, Dies Illa (Signup & Interest Check)

There exists beyond the veil a world much like our own, where magic is but the stuff of legends and gods naught but myths.

Something happened to you. You looked beyond the fold and you found Truth. Divine, absolute Truth.Most of you went mad.But really, what is sanity when it’s held in by the Lie that is Consensus Reality? That’s right. Just another Lie. Another facet of the falsehood that mortals are perfectly willing to accept at face value. You used to be like them. Like those fools. But now you know better. You know the Truth.

The Nature of Godliness

Aura:The Zettai Ryōiki, that holy area where none can intrude; the expression of the soul into the external world; whatever poetic sophistry you want to describe it as, that’s the aura. This is the thing that truly sets us apart from the mundane. A god’s aura is invasive and all-consuming. It envelops the world around them and forms the majority of their power.The Zettai Ryōiki is as much an extension of a god’s being as it is an extension of their will. It is miracle; it is, itself, magic. A weak god with a small aura might invoke his power by laying on hands; in doing so he might heal wounds, or inflict new ones upon his victim. A more powerful god, with a consummately more greater aura, might deliver a feast or a famine upon an entire nation, or potentially an entire world. For some gods, this comes completely naturally; this is known as an aura’s influence, and it varies with the god and the god’s nature. Some gods have an aura of healing, some an aura of decay; some an aura of cold, some of heat. It is merely dependant on the god. When making your character, I would absolutely love for you to do something detailed and unique when describing the natural influence of your aura. Get crazy. Don’t be surprised when I tag it with a bunch of simpler things to summarize it (and therefore you)

Zettai Gyakuten is an involuntarily unleashed aspect of a god’s aura. It is indistinguishable from a god’s aura except that its influences are diametrically opposed to that of the god’s normal aura. It is the shadow we all fear, for while we are comfortable wreathed in our Zettai Ryōiki, there is nothing more horrible than to feel the reversal and revulsion of Zettai Gyakuten. It is all our inner fears and self-doubt bundled into one horrible little package. Luckily, the only way to reliably set off the manifestation of Zettai Gyakuten is by causing a complete mental breakdown

SacramentsThe Sacrament of Death; you experienced something incredibly close to death once, not simply some random near-death experience. You really and truly should have passed on; you might have gotten all the way into the ground, or even been cremated, but by then you had already begun the shift into godhood. In death you have found the Truth of the world.

The Sacrament of Heart; your discovery of the nature of the world was not premeditated by any means. It occurred in a moment of passion, and you found in your ardor some hidden facet of the Truth of the world; whether through rage or through lust, some primal awakening within you brought you to the Truth.

The Sacrament of Stars; you have always been motivated to understand the world. Whether through the sciences or through thaumaturgy, or even by exploring the world in a more esoteric fashion, such as through adventure or artistry, you pushed and pushed and pushed at the limits of mortal knowledge. And behind it all, shining revelation waited for you; understanding struck you all in a single moment, and suddenly you Knew how the world truly worked. And in this, you found the Truth of the world.

The Sacrament of Falsity; you always saw the cracks in the world, the bits that didn’t quite make sense. You knew there was something deeply wrong with the world as others saw it. As you grew up, you searched for the truth behind the world. You looked between the cracks and there between the lies you found Truth.

The World At Large

This is not Equestria as you know it. I’ll be quite frank with that. This is an Equestria without the sort of magic you’re used to; the only magic wielded by mortals is the art of Thaumaturgy, which isn’t even regarded as magic by the citizens of Equestria. It’s just another branch of science.Thaumaturgy is by no means just another name for magic. Thaumaturgy is highly ritualized and takes large amounts of time and effort to achieve anything, and is tied to the ritual rather than to the mind of a ‘caster’. It’s more a quirk of the physical laws of the world than anything else, no different from the fact that certain chemicals will react when heated.Magic, proper magic, is the domain of gods and gods alone. It is the act of the will directly upon the world and defies any sort of scientific understanding. Some say it is the embodiment of a god’s understanding of the Truth, but it is most certainly a thing beyond mortal ken. There is no known way for a non-god to achieve any sort of magical ability; the only way to get magic is to experience the Truth, and in such become a god.

This, of course, implies a few things. For one thing, “how do pegasi fly”, to which the answer is “physics says ‘yes’ in this world”. And “where do cutie marks come from”, to which I say “nobody knows, but don’t assume that there aren’t gods out there fully capable of fucking with yours”.Some of you have realized I dodged a far more important topic. Unicorns. Well, here’s the sad fact of the matter. Unicorns are completely and utterly gimped in this world. Nah, just kidding. In a striking reversal of tropes, unicorns are the archetypical warrior caste of this Equestria, stereotypically noble, honorable, and with a nice hard place to mount a weapon perched right on top of their head. In a more esoteric sense, unicorns are useful for what they’re made of; unicorn blood is a very useful thaumatological ingredient, capable of taking the place of numerous expensive and hard-to-retrieve materials in numerous rituals, leaving unicorns as uniquely advantaged as able to provide for thaumaturgy.

Anyone interested, post about it even if you don’t have ideas yet. I’ll try to help out anyone flesh out concepts and clarify anything.

Aura of Coincidence: A million to one chance always succeeds. Unlike everyone other conmare's diamond, this one is actually real. The arrow manages to hit the tiny vulnerable spot on the armored flying lizard. Nocignoil's aura caused unlikely or nearly impossible happenstances to occur, spawning myriad stories and narratives. She is excluded from any majors roles though, a brief cameo every story but her own.

The reverse of this is bored one, stagnation. Stories sitll happen, but it is a repeat rather than a reinvention. Innovation grinds to a halt, and reality jumps through the same worn hoops endlessly.Coincidences seem scotch-taped on, jumping sharks when they don't get tripped up by pesky common sense. The boring common sense, not the fun kind. The kind that tells you a journey is too risky and you listen.

Sacrament of Heart: Nocignoil wasn't entirely sure how it happened; much of her post-truth life is a blur. But one day, she saw it, the threads of the narrative. They had gone on and on in boring patterns, but now she was at the reins! IT was high time someone made a good plotline out of all this triviality.

____________________________"Why should I form an alliance when I can do it all by myself?""To allow you to live serves no purpose. Knowledge must be preserved, and I already have yours.""We are opposites.... And strong.""I'm on my way Sister."